Quail farming can
offer numerous benefits in terms of meat production,
nutrition, and eggs.
Salient features of
quail farming with nutritive composition of its meat
and eggs can be summed as:
Lesser market age
4-5 weeks
Less initial investment
May be started as cottage industry
Easily manageable by household ladies
A better tool to alleviate poverty
Meat qualities:
Tastier than chicken
Promotes body and brain development in children
Best balanced food for pregnant and nursing
mothers
Less fat and cholesterol content
Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix Japonica) was
first described as a research model by and was used
as a pilot animal for more expensive experiments in
1960.
During 1970, research with Japanese quail expanded
from avian-science related topics to biology and
medicine, as bird could be kept easily relatively in
large number in a small facility and be used as
model animal for wide variety of works, from
embryology to space related sciences.
At the event of World Poultry Congress, 2004, the
quail has been declared as the model avian species
for future research.
Quails are now commonly used as an experimental
animal for biological research and vaccine
production, especially Newcastle disease vaccine to
which disease quails are resistant.
In Pakistan quail farming was started in early 1970,
with the introduction of exotic breeding stock of
Japanese quails. However, quail production has
remained as one of the neglected components of
poultry sector in the country.
Very little research work has been conducted on its
breeding, incubation, housing, nutritional
requirements, feeding, management and disease
control aspects in Pakistan.
About four decades back a breeding stock of hybrid
Japanese quails was imported in Pakistan with good
genetic potential having better egg production
performance, egg quality parameters and hatching
traits compared to local quail called Betair.
But unfortunately, due to continuous inbreeding,
genetic potential of the imported quail might have
deteriorated. Simultaneously no serious attempt has
been made to improve genetic potential of our native
quail.
Although public and private sectors made efforts for
the development of quail farming, but the measures
were not adequate and fall short of expectations for
producing high yield of quail meat at a reasonable
low cost.
The private sector was not given adequate monetary
and technical incentives. Even public sector
organizations dealing in quail and allied industries
faced enormous hurdles due to bureaucracy and lack
of application of modern quail production
technology.
These together with many other problems including
poor quail management, low live body weight and meat
yield, late ready to market age and lack of quail
processing are some of the important reasons for
slow development of quail farming in the country.
The low live body weight and meat yield appears to
be a great hurdle for development of commercial
quail farming. The situation therefore calls to take
immediate concrete steps to improve genetic
potential of our local quail.
Avian Research and Training (ART) Centre, of the
University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore
has been working on this thing for sometime now. The
main aims and objectives of this centre are as
under:
Human resource development in the field of
quail/avian production.
Technical guidance and advice to the stake
holders, small farmers and house-hold women in avian
production.
Research for enhancing genetic potential to
improve performance and meat yield in local quail
strains.
Courtesy:
Pakistan Today
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Pakissan.com;
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